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His voice was too close, too deep and raw. Flaying Devin’s senses as she huddled against Rey’s back and clenched her teeth against the myriad of pathetic noises searing their way up her throat.
“That was then,” Rey said through an inhuman rumble. Rage a bloodthirsty shimmer in the air around him as he took more ground, he pushed Beau before him with the force of it.
For all his brute strength and careless violence, Beau was the weaker of the two. Not by much, not enough to be called lesser by any stretch. It was enough by the slimmest of margins for Rey’s will to overpower him. Driving Beau from the bedroom, out into the living room, buffeted by the suffocating wave of hot ash and smoke.
“Yeah, that was then, but I’m not the one forgetting what you were like after it all fell apart,” Beau said, words vibrating with his barely contained rage.
Devin was glad she couldn’t see him then. Didn’t want to be a party to the virulent hostility and toxic fury swirling through the air. Wishing she wasn’t there at all, unable to peel herself away from the unwanted comfort of Rey’s scalding heat as he carried her with him. Unwilling to leave her behind, though his predatory strides drove him out into the apartment with Beau.
“Leave now,” Rey commanded in a deafening roar, holding Devin against all that outrage all the tighter, not giving her a breath of space.
Beau stumbled out the door, losing that innate Alpha grace with a ground trembling thud as he fell to the floor before the elevator. All snarling curses and snapping teeth, he didn’t rise as Rey took up the space of the doorway. Rey sucked the oxygen from the short hall as his violent presence made him appear taller, broader. Already intimidating, he became beyond dangerous, a certain death to the first to push him.
“Stay away from the club,” Rey ground out through a subterranean growl. “Don’t come around here.”
Rey turned his back on Beau, no longer seeing him as a threat. He’d won without a single drop of blood spilled, and they all knew it. He kept Devin against him, sliding her against his body until she came to a stop at his chest.
“Don’t expect me to pick up the pieces when you fuck it all up,” Beau yelled from where he sat sprawled against the shining brass.
But Rey’s door had already shut tight, the locks engaged. Muffling the now defeated Alpha’s parting shot. Devin still shivered, the very sound of his impotent rage enough to incite her fear. He’d kill her if he got the chance. That much she could be certain of.
“He’ll calm down, just have to give him some space,” Rey murmured at her ear, hiking Devin higher against his chest.
She would have argued, might have snorted her scathing disbelief at Rey’s wishful thinking, but he gave her no chance. Though painted with more than a little of the smoky darkness of violence still bunching his muscles tight, his purr was loud and brutal. It laid the last vestiges of her to waste before it as the deep reverberation worked through her joints. Melting against the Alpha, Devin sighed as her cheek came to rest against him. Hating him for doing it, she still reveled in the loss of pain, the many aches fading away as he pushed the sound into her. Making her pliant, keeping her quiet as he peeled away the silken cover to leave her naked and dangling boneless in his cradling arms.
Deposited in the bed, she had a mere breath to realize everything was wrong before he smothered her with the thundering resonance and his heat. Rey buried her under his great weight and layers of softness.
Given no choice, unable to escape even if she wanted to, Devin’s eyes slipped shut on a rattling sigh. She needed sleep. Time to heal. Whether he would afford her those things remained to be seen. For the moment, Devin dove under the dark waves of slumber with a halfhearted prayer that she’d never wake again.
* * *
Devin had no idea how long he let her sleep, but it wasn’t enough to matter to the numbing exhaustion still plaguing her before he woke her. He’d begun with soft touches and quiet murmurs, resorting to dragging her from beneath the heavy layers of bedding when Devin refused to rouse.
Sitting at the island with the sinful softness of a sweater covering her to her knees and wrapped in the dusty blue cover from before, Devin stared at the Alpha fussing on the other side with bleary displeasure.
She wanted to sleep for a thousand years, and he seemed to be intent on feeding her.
Not a bite of it made from the refrigerator containing a collection of foreign beers, a single bottle of water, and the odd addition of a hunk of what might be cheese. At least, it’d been in there the last time she viewed the contents. What she wouldn’t give for dim sum, a plate of saucy noodles and tender crisp vegetables, but Rey unpacked fancy sandwiches and giant bowls of crunchy lettuce. Dishing them all up onto his tableware as if she couldn’t eat from waxed paper and plastic. If his intent was to take away the fact he hadn’t done more than open packets of toppings and condiments, he should have let her drowse through the charade.
Devin leaned away from the pristine white bowl full of dewy lettuce Rey slid across to her, lips turning down at the ham sandwich presented on a plate with homemade baked chips.
“There’s turkey, too,” Rey said, reaching back for the bag with some deli’s name branded across it. “Roast beef, if you prefer?”
“No.”
“Then eat the salad.”
Devin’s lip curled. Who saw crispy water as a replacement for an actual meal?
A single hard jab of her fingers sent the plate and bowl clattering back across the pale marble. Devin groaned as she wriggled off the stool made for someone far taller than she’d ever be. Landing hard, a shock wave of pain ran pell-mell up her spine, leaving her staggering towards the couch. The rank scent of cinnamon sent her reeling in the opposite direction, her only option the bed that reeked of Rey.
Better that than the other, she decided, already letting the cover drop away to crawl onto the mattress. Falling into the cradling softness that still held a hint of warmth, she dragged the blankets over her in a careless burrow.
“You need to eat,” Rey snapped, impatient hands pulling the covers away in a jerky tug. He did it again when Devin continued to drag them back into place.
“Then get real food, jerk face,” Devin muttered into the pillow she buried her head under.
“What did you call me?”
